Fortnite is no stranger to collaborating with several well-known IPs and franchises. Both PlayStation and Xbox featured Kratos and Master Chief in the game, though for those wondering why we didn’t see anything from Nintendo’s mascots, we finally have an answer. According to a former Epic Games executive, Samus Aran didn’t make it to Fortnite because Nintendo wanted her to be a Switch exclusive.
Speaking with Game File in a recent interview, former Epic Games chief creative officer Donald Mustard revealed that Epic approached Nintendo about possibly featuring one of its mascots in Fortnite, specifically Samus Aran from the Metroid franchise. Mustard revealed that Nintendo declined Epic’s offer as the company wanted to keep Samus as a Switch exclusive skin, which went against Epic’s idea of cross-platform collaboration and the availability of skins on all consoles.
“[Nintendo] got really hung up on their characters showing up on platforms that weren’t their platforms,” said Mustard. “They would be thrilled to have Nintendo characters in Fortnite, but just only if it’s on their platform.”
Of course, Epic Games wouldn’t agree to that because it believed characters, regardless of which platform they were exclusive to, needed to appear on all consoles and PC for a shared experience with all players. Mustard added:
“For me and for all of Epic, we’re like, ‘That is an absolute must.’ We want to make sure that Fortnite is the same experience, no matter what screen or device you’re playing on.”
Nintendo has a long history of keeping things strictly in its court and being quite protective of its intellectual properties, so this isn’t a big surprise. In fact, that same tenacity led Nintendo to crack down on popular Switch emulator Yuzu and Nintendo 3DS emulator Citra earlier this year, hitting them with a hefty lawsuit of $2.4 million. The emulation software was also pulled offline.
Source: Game File (via Video Games Chronicle)
